Rail Yard

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT RAIL YARD - PAGE 3

More than 8,000 customers from the Southwest Side and two southwest suburbs were without power Tuesday night after a crane knocked down power lines at a rail yard, officials said. The outage occurred at 7:35 p.m. when a crane came into contact with at least one Commonwealth Edison line at a CSX rail yard at 71st Street and Harlem Avenue in Bedford Park, spokesman Tim Lindberg said. The collision caused a chain reaction that knocked out power to five other lines, Lindberg said. Power was restored about 9 p.m. "It's not clear if [the crane]

A 42-year-old railroad worker was crushed between two boxcars in a south suburban Riverdale rail yard early Thursday. The victim was identified by Riverdale police as Daniel Coats of Lake Station, Ind. Coats was working as a switch operator for the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad when he got caught between the couplers of the two boxcars, said Riverdale Police Sgt. Michael Ryan. "They were moving and hooking up freight cars around in the yard when, at some point, (Coats)

Inbound commuter service out of Joliet on Metra's Rock Island line has resumed after a nearly two-hour delay because of a disabled freight train in the Joliet rail yard. The Heritage Corridor line also was affected. Although service has resumed, "there will be lingering delays," said Metra spokesman Tom Miller. Check Metra's website for updates.

Having just read the Sept. 25 letter titled "Help get food to North Korea" from Janet C. Young, director of the Church World Service, I am struck by the tonnage of rice that the U.S. has sent to this starving country. I'm a railroad worker. Six hundred and seventy tons? That's a mere five hopper cars of rice! You could hide that many cars in a rail yard and not even notice them for weeks.

A boy from Chicago was electrocuted climbing on top of a train in a south suburban rail yard Sunday evening, authorities said. The boy, whose age was not immediately released, was one of two juveniles who entered a Metra rail yard in University Park just after 7 p.m., Metra spokesman Michael Gillis said. He suffered a fatal electric shock while climbing on top of a parked train, Gillis said. The boy was pronounced dead on the scene, according to the Office of the Will County Cororner.

A major rail yard expansion set for the Englewood neighborhood got the go-ahead from a City Council committee Monday despite continued concerns from residents about the potential effect of additional diesel trucks on the health of people living nearby. Aldermen on the council's Housing Committee agreed to a plan to sell 105 vacant city-owned lots to Norfolk Southern for $1.1 million. The land would become part of an 84-acre freight yard the company hopes to begin operating in 2015.

Dozens of people living near a Superfund site were exposed to chemicals in their drinking water that could result in serious health effects. Thirty-two people were exposed to trichloroethylene and about 24 people were exposed to carbon tetrachloride at levels that could result in serious health effects, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The agency, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, inspected 598 wells and found 251 contaminated near a rail yard.

About 5,000 Loop-bound Chicago, South Shore & South Bend commuters experienced service disruptions Wednesday morning when a train pulled down overhead electrical wires, bottling up rush-hour trains in a Michigan City, Ind., rail yard. Riders who normally board at the South Shore's Hegewisch station were shuttled by CTA and Pace buses to the nearby Kensington station on the Metra Electric line, said Metra spokesman Chris Knapton. South Shore service was restored at about 7:45 a.m., Knapton said.

A 40-year-old United Parcel Service truck driver was crushed to death between two semi-trailers early Tuesday in a parking lot at the Dolton intermodal rail yard. James Culliton, of the 15800 block of West Anna Drive in Wadsworth, died of asphyxia and compression of his chest when he was trapped between the two trailers, said a Cook County medical examiner's office spokesman. The accident occurred about 12:30 a.m., just after Culliton had parked his truck in a lot at the Union Pacific rail yard, 350 E. Sibley Blvd.

Metra canceled several trains and warned of hour-long delays on the SouthWest line Thursday night as officials investigated how freight locomotives that derailed south of Union Station rolled out of a nearby rail yard. Union Pacific would not say whether controls were properly set on the locomotives or whether anyone was on board. "The focus of the investigation is to find out how that happened," said Mark Davis, a spokesman for Union Pacific. Eight locomotives, all connected, rolled out of the rail yard near 18th Street around 8 a.m. Four of them derailed at the bridge over the Chicago River, tying up commuter trains and leaking gear oil in the river.